Venice Art for All 2014 (english subtitles)

TEXT OF THE VIDEO
Venice, world heritage site; Venice, a special tourist destination which, with its 453 bridges, everyone imagines to be an enormous barrier to mobility, making visits difficult.
To debunk this common myth, the City of Venice for many years has adopted various strategies which have made the city much easier to visit than could be imagined.
One component of this successful programme is “A Venezia le barriere si superano di corsa”(Running through barriers in Venice), which takes advantage of the temporary ramps used for the Venice marathon to guarantee more than three months of access for everyone over an area of almost three kilometres.
Interview with Alessandro Maggioni, director of Public Works: It's an ongoing task, an important job within the Plan for the Removal of architectural barriers, which the Administration considers to be a flagship element of our activities. A task that continues over time: we have done the same in previous years in an area which is densely packed with cultural sites. Today we continue to reaffirm the need for Venice to be increasingly accessible. And we are doing this alongside major cultural institutions and other businesses.
The second edition of Venice Art for All enhances this event further, with a project that ensures that the ramps will remain in place until 15th June on the Catecumeni, Calcina and Incurabili bridges in the Dorsoduro sestiere.
The idea originally arose from a desire to meet the mobility needs of Tito and Matilde, two young people with disabilities; it was endorsed by the municipal administration and every year since has found new supporters to promote the concept of the city of art open to all.
New for 2014 is "Dress Code Venice Ramp”, an urban project of creative decoration which involves students and teachers from the European Design Schools (IED) in Florence and Venice in workshops with the aim of finding solutions for improving the aesthetics of the ramps, which are currently mounted on a system of prefabricated jointed tubing.
Interview with Professor Matteo Fioravanti: "The idea is a collaborative workshop with students from IED Florence and IED Venice. In practice there are three workshop sessions. The first was in Florence, when we presented the outlines of the project. The second is being held at the moment in Venice, where the young participants
are coming into contact with the various interested parties to discuss their preliminary design ideas and solutions. The third session will take place in just over a month's time, again in Venice, when the young people will plan and design their concepts for a new look for the ramps. We will see them at work: they will physically build the ramps themselves".
While we wait to learn about the projects designed by the IED students, which will be created in April, anyone wishing to visit the museums and art galleries in the Dorsoduro area can do so with total accessibility; there is an itinerary which covers two different routes connected by public transport.
A trail that begins at the “Accademia” vaporetto stop, from where it is possible to visit the Gallerie dell’Accademia, one of Italy's most important museums. Following the route, after passing the Calcina bridge it is easy to reach the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, one of the most accomplished collections of eighteenth-century Italian, European and American art.
Alternatively visitors can follow the Giudecca canal along the Fondamenta delle Zattere, reaching the former Ospedale degli Incurabili, now home to the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, a prestigious higher education institute for the high culture and art sector.
From the “Salute” public transport stop you can reach Punta della Dogana, now a centre of contemporary art, which with Palazzo Grassi makes up the Francois Pinault Foundation centre, hosting major exhibitions of contemporary art. Continuing towards Rio Terà ai Saloni via the ramp over the Catecumeni bridge, takes you to the Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova, dedicated to the Venetian painter.
With the Dress Code Venice Ramp project, the various individuals involved set themselves the objective, through an act of collective intelligence, of drawing up a code of guidelines to define an appropriate look for the temporary ramps, a design that combines utility, accessibility and aesthetics.